1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a microwave oven, and more particularly, to a microwave oven and a method of controlling the same, wherein the microwave oven includes a device which registers one or more cooking courses desired by a user.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a microwave oven is an apparatus which cooks food by oscillating a microwave. Such a microwave oven includes a super-high frequency oscillation tube as a magnetron to generate a super-high frequency of, for example, 2,450 MHz in response to high-voltage power applied thereto. The super-high frequency of 2,450 MHz generated from the magnetron causes an electric field to turn in a direction at a rate of 2.45 billion times per second. This super-high frequency is applied to the food, thereby cooking the food through inducing a large amount of heat.
The microwave oven may be pre-stored with cooking information to automatically and appropriately cook food where one of various cooking courses corresponding to the pre-stored cooking information is selected. A user of the microwave oven can cook the food by selecting a desired cooking course.
The number of cooking courses has steadily increased with the development of various cooking methods. A conventional microwave oven registers cooking courses corresponding to a favorites menu button, according to a user's taste, so as so to readily search for a desired cooking course among a large number of cooking courses pre-stored in the microwave oven, and cook food according to the desired cooking course.
That is, to cook the food, the user presses the favorites menu button to select one of the registered cooking courses. Accordingly, a method of automatically cooking the food corresponding to the selected cooking course is thereby carried out.
FIGS. 1A to 1J illustrate a cooking course registration method disclosed in Korean Patent Publication No. 2002-32579. A microwave oven employed in the cooking course registration method is equipped with an operational panel which operates the microwave oven. A button for a favorites menu is provided in the operational panel. The microwave oven has pre-stored information related to cooking courses, such as heating, milk boiling, alcoholic drink boiling, flesh defrosting, etc., as illustrated in FIGS. 1A to 1D.
Where the microwave oven registers a new cooking course, a user of the microwave oven presses a button necessary to register the new cooking course. That is, the user searches for a desired cooking course through an indexing function related to the pre-stored cooking courses, and registers the searched cooking course in the microwave oven as shown in FIGS. 1E to 1J.
Accordingly, to register the new cooking course according to the conventional cooking course registration method disclosed in Korean Patent Publication No. 2002-32579, the user necessarily presses corresponding buttons and then registers the new cooking course after screens of FIGS. 1A to 1J are sequentially displayed. Where the user registers a cooking course such as an egg poaching in the microwave oven, the user selects the cooking course of the egg poaching displayed on a screen of FIG. 1H. After the cooking course of the egg poaching is selected, screens of FIGS. 1I and 1J are sequentially displayed.
However, to register another cooking course after registering the cooking course of the egg poaching, operations corresponding to the screens of FIGS. 1A to 1J are again necessarily repeated, and the screens re-displayed. Therefore, the conventional cooking course registration method disclosed above is inconvenient and time consuming to use.
On the other hand, to delete the registered cooking course (e.g., the egg poaching) according to a cooking course deletion method disclosed in Korean Patent Publication No. 2002-32579, the user necessarily and sequentially navigates through the screens of FIGS. 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E prior to designating a corresponding cooking course to be deleted from the registered cooking courses, and then finally presses a cancel button. Accordingly, the cooking course deletion method disclosed in Korean Patent Publication No. 2002-32579 is also inconvenient to use and time consuming.